Episode 81: Hubble’s Hydra

In this week’s episode, Cormac makes his hosting debut as we talk about the most pressing threat to modern Astronomy (other than a worldwide coffee shortage) – megaconstellations! Despite sharing a majority of syllables with the collective noun of asterisms we all know and pretend to remember, these formations of hundreds of satellites are becoming more and more of an issue for astronomers. Will tells us about how satellites are sprinkling spectra with a side of the Sun and Kiersten reveals how even the Hubble Space Telescope is not safe from the multi-headed monsters of Musk et al. Join us as we find out that things might not be as bad as they seem, and discuss the pros and cons of these developments.

Astrobites:

https://astrobites.org/2023/09/07/satellites-in-weave/

https://astrobites.org/2023/08/10/telescopes_in_orbit/

Space Sound: 

Handcrafted by Cormac using twotone.io, based on a MESA stellar evolution model by Harim Jin.